Expanding human freedoms for economic development

The following are reflections on Amartya Kumar Sen's views on development as a process of enhancing human freedoms of various kinds, based on his latest book Development as Freedom. Prof. Sen, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University, United Kingdom, was the first Asian recipient of the Nobel prize in economics, being honored in 1998. This is the first of two articles.

JAKARTA (JP): In his latest book, Prof. Amartya Kumar Sen has presented and analyzed in a persuasive and rigorous way his concept of development as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people can enjoy.

In this approach the expansion of freedom is seen both as the primary end and the principal means of development. The intrinsic importance of human freedom as the preeminent objective of development is strongly supplemented by the instrumental effectiveness of freedoms of particular kinds to promote freedoms of other kinds.

The linkages between different types of freedoms are empirical and causal, rather than constitutive and compositional. For instance, empirical evidence has indicated that economic and political freedom help to reinforce one another.

Similarly, the social opportunities of education and health care (which may require public action) complement individual opportunities of economic and political participation, and also help to foster a person's own initiative in overcoming his or her deprivations.

Obviously, Sen's broad view of development contrasts with the more conventional and narrower views on development as the growth of gross domestic product (GDP), rise in personal incomes, rapid industrialization and technological progress or social modernization.

Sen's view on development as a process of expanding substantive freedoms involves the removal of the major sources of unfreedom, namely poverty and tyranny, poor economic opportunities and systematic social deprivation, neglect of public utilities and the intolerance or overactivity of repressive regimes.

Despite the unprecedented increase in material welfare, including in many developing countries, a large part of mankind, perhaps even the majority, is denied elementary freedoms.

Often the lack of substantive freedoms is directly related to absolute poverty, which in some countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in North Korea has manifested itself in famines, which have denied millions of people, often children, the basic freedom to survive.

Even in countries which have never experienced famine, absolute poverty has deprived vulnerable people of the freedom to satisfy their hunger or to have sufficient nutrition, to obtain medication for treatable illnesses, to have the opportunity to be adequately clothed or sheltered, or to have access to clean water and sanitary facilities.

In other cases, unfreedom (the lack of freedom) is directly related to a lack of public facilities and social care, such as the absence of epidemiological programs, of organized arrangements for adequate health care or educational facilities, or of effective institutions for the maintenance of security, law and order.

The antifemale bias in some, often poor or traditional societies also severely restricts the substantive freedoms that women are entitled to enjoy. However, the freedom to seek and hold jobs outside the home can contribute to the reduction of women's relative and absolute deprivation.

By holding a job outside the home and thereby contributing to the family's welfare, a woman can have a greater voice in her family's affairs because of her greater economic independence.

In still other cases the lack of freedom is the direct result of the denial of political and civil rights by authoritarian governments and by imposed restrictions on the freedom to participate actively in the social, political and economic life of the community.

In several developing countries the opposition to democracy and basic political and civil freedoms is often based on the following arguments:

First, there is the claim that these political freedoms and rights hamper economic growth and development. This view, sometimes referred to as the "Lee Thesis" (after Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister and current senior minister of Singapore), is actually only backed by fairly rudimentary empirical evidence.

More comprehensive intercountry comparisons have not provided confirmation of the Lee Thesis, and there is little evidence that an authoritarian regime actually helps economic growth. In fact, the empirical evidence collected by Sen very strongly suggests that rapid economic growth in several developing countries was primarily caused by a favorable economic climate rather than a harsh political system.

Second, some advocates of authoritarian policies have claimed that if poor people are given the choice between having political freedoms and fulfilling economic needs, they will invariably choose the latter. This patronizing claim is, like the Lee Thesis, based on little empirical evidence. The only way of verifying this claim would be to put the matter to democratic testing in free elections with freedom of opposition and expression which, however, are precisely the things that the supporters of authoritarianism, notably the government leaders in many developing countries, will not allow to happen.

A third argument in favor of authoritarian policies is based on the claim that political freedoms, liberties and democracy are "Western concepts" that are alien and not in accordance with "Asian values" which, again according to Lee Kuan Yew, emphasize order and personal and social discipline, rather than political liberty and freedom.

However, the problem with the concept of Asian values is that generalizations about Asia are not easy, given the vast size of the continent, where about 60 percent of the world's population live. What represents the values of such a vast region, with such immense cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity?

The advocates of Asian values have often tended to look primarily at Northeast Asia as the region of particular applicability, including China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, as distinct from Southeast Asia (except Singapore) and South Asia. However, even Northeast Asia is culturally, ethnically and linguistically quite diverse. Hence, attempts at generalizations about Asian values often tend to be quite crude or just plain wrong.

The important role of democracy is particularly evident in preventing famines from happening. In looking at the factors that could prevent famines from occurring, Sen emphasizes the important role of democracy.

In fact, the causal connection between democracy and the nonoccurrence of famines is not hard to find. While famines have killed millions of people in various countries under authoritarian rule, they never kill the rulers of these countries.

The presidents, kings, bureaucrats, military leaders and their families in nondemocratic countries hit by a famine never are famine victims. The simple reason is that in these countries those in power do not have to suffer the political consequences of their failure to prevent famine, as in these countries there are no free elections, no credible opposition parties and no free press able to publish facts embarrassing to the government (but which an authoritarian government could censor out).

In democracies, on the other hand, famines could also affect the ruling groups and political leaders. This threat would give them the political incentive to prevent a famine from occurring. Aside from this, information also plays an important role in democracies.

A press free to conduct investigative reporting could contribute greatly to bringing out valuable information that could influence policies to prevent famines. The importance of democratic freedoms is evident in comparisons between China and India in preventing famine.

While during the past half century China has made more rapid progress than India in social development, specifically in providing basic education and primary health care on a mass scale, it nevertheless experienced a disastrous famine, as a result of which an estimated 30 million people died, following the failure of the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1961.

India, on the other hand, experienced famines right up to the time of independence in 1947. However, since independence and the establishment of a multiparty democratic system (a system India has been able to maintain up until the present), India has not had a famine, even though at certain times it experienced severe crop failures.

Sen's analysis of development treats the freedoms of individuals as the basic building blocks. Hence, development should be seen as a process of expanding the substantive freedoms, or "human capabilities" (as an expression of the freedoms), that people have.

This perspective of human capability is to some extent related to the perspective of "human capital", since both perspectives are concerned with the role of human beings, and in particular with the abilities that they try to achieve.

The human capital perspective, however, is narrower in scope as it focuses on the agency of human beings in augmenting production possibilities, that is how they can become more productive over time and thus give a greater contribution to the process of economic growth.

Sen's perspective of human capability, on the other hand, is broader than the human capital perspective, as it focuses on the ability or the substantive freedom of people to lead the lives they have reason to value and to enhance the real choices they have.

Sen's capability perspective involves, to some extent, a return to an integrated approach to economic and social development as expounded by Adam Smith in his books The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

In analyzing the determination of production possibilities, Smith emphasized the role of education as well as division of labor, learning by doing and skill formation. But the development of human capability in leading a worthwhile life (as well as in being more productive) is quite central to Smith's analysis of "the wealth of nations".

The writer is an economics historian with the Center for Economic and Development Studies, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (PEP-LIPI), Jakarta.